The Interview

My interview for the AMB program is scheduled for 6 p.m. on a Wednesday night.  To be very honest, although I'm eager for the AMB program to get started, I'm actually distracted right now by my excitement for my upcoming Galapagos trip.  And really, I have no idea what to expect of the interview.  I've passed the test.  I've met and talked with many of the class sponsors and mentors already, in various other birding activities as well as the previous AMB-admission activities.  So my mind is not totally in the game when I leave home at 5 for the 30 or 40 minute drive down to the Audubon offices at Chatfield.

But the traffic catches my attention.  It stops, then crawls, then stops, then crawls.  I adjust my arrival time calculation.  First:  I'll get there 20 or 30 minutes early.  Then:  I'll get there 5 or 10 minutes early.  Finally, that horrible realization that I AM GOING TO BE LATE!  What kind of impression will that make?!?  Oh. My. God.  I am SO embarrassed at what now seems a horrible lack of planning;  I should have left home a good 30 minutes earlier!

By the time I roll into the parking lot of the offices, I'm a full ten minutes late.  I grab my bag, and run down the outside stairs to the Audubon office door, grab the handle and...it's locked!  WHAT?!?  I peer through the windows, and sure enough, it's completely dark inside.  Oh holy crap.  I've gotten the location wrong.   Maybe it's in the meeting room upstairs!

So back up the stairs in a hurry, and through the front door - into a room with 30 or so law enforcement professionals - mostly men - sitting in a lecture.  I see the sign:  "Boat Safety Seminar".  The entire roomful of uniform-clad individuals has turned to stare at me, dressed in my hawk t-shirt and flip-flops.  One nice man walks toward me, asking if he can help me, and I back my way out of the room as my face turns red with embarrassment and confusion. 

I'm lost.  No idea what to do.  I pull out my iphone and double check the message confirming the time and place of the interview.  It clearly says Audubon offices at 6 p.m.  I have the date right.  Maybe I'm not at the right Audubon offices?  Are there other Audubon offices?  If I'm not smart enough to get to the interview (let alone get to the interview on time), maybe I'm not smart enough to get into the AMB program.  I shuffle back to my car, unlock the door, sit down and wonder what to do next.  I have a phone, but no numbers and no idea who I would even call.  I think that I may just have been crazy to think I could do this program when I can't even get to the freaking interview, let alone handle a year of this very demanding program.

As I sit there feeling absolutely defeated, a car pulls in next to me, and a woman emerges.  I recognize her as Karen, one of the mentors.  She asks, "Judy?" and introduces herself, calmly telling me that she and the other interviewers have all been stuck in traffic, but nobody had my number to call and let me know.  Relief floods over me.  I may have been late, but not nearly as late as my interviewers.  In fact, I'm so relieved that I nearly start laughing.

So this is how my interview goes.  The other interviewers drift in; there is a fair amount of disorganization; I've lost my nervousness and any sense of formality.  The interviewers pull out my application, and pretty much ask the same questions that I've already answered in writing.  Why do you want to be a Master Birder?  Why this program?  What experience birding?  Volunteering?  And on and on.  I spit out canned answers - the same ones I wrote on my short entrance essay - they nod and make notes, and then it's over.  I feel confident I'll get in.   Then I walk out of the dark basement offices, into bright early-evening sunshine to birdsong, and wonder what to do.

Of course, there's really only one thing to do.  I go birding.

Trumpeter Swans, Cordova, AK
7/31/11

And I think about the answers I gave to questions, and the things I left out.  I told the Audubon folks that I first really got interested in birds on a trip to Alaska in July 2011, when I went there to run my 49th-state marathon.  What I didn't tell them was how I had thought I would make that trip to Alaska with The Doctor, and how I had thought we were going to get married, and how I had thought we were going to live happily ever after.   I didn't tell them that I was devastated when The Doctor broke up with me on Valentine's Day that year, and  in the ensuing months, I didn't really know why I should get up in the morning any more, but that somehow my great friends Mel and Suzi and Benji and Amie all came together to make that Alaska trip happen anyway.  I didn't tell them how all those Bald Eagles and puffins and swans gave me - if not something to smile about -  a reason to get out of bed every morning.  I told them about my trip to Florida that next Christmas, and how the big birds fascinated me.  What I didn't tell them was how Melissa's invitation for that trip was a lifeline to me, since I didn't have a clue how I would spend the holiday without The Doctor that year, and how the birds and the sun and the company of Mel and Suzi helped me forget that the year before, I'd been in Vail, in Colorado snow and sunshine spending the holiday with what I thought was my future family.  And I didn't mention that my mom got sick, for the last time, just days after that Christmas trip, and how I went back to Iowa and spent most of February of that year shuttling between the Super 8 motel and Mom's nursing home.  And how, even in the frigid zero degree weather, I found solace in walking outside with my camera, trying to catch the House Sparrows in the weak winter light. 

Cedar Waxwing, Onawa, IA
2/21/12

And how, one morning, a flock of Cedar Waxwings surprised me at the Super 8, flitting about in the juniper just outside the breakfast room window, and how I found some joy even in those hard days as I stood out in that cold air snapping photo after photo, wondering how exactly I instinctively knew the name of this bird.  And how my mom loved seeing my photos, and loved hearing about the birds:  something she could relate to ever so much more than she could to my marathons, even though she had supported me completely in that effort.  And how, on the last day of my mom's life, I took my brothers one by one over to a place on the Missouri River - just 7 miles to the west - where I had found a goodly number of Bald Eagles, and you could sit on the side of the road and watch them perched in trees, sometimes swooping down to hunt;  we went in groups of two so that we could each have some last moments alone with her. 

Bald Eagles, Missouri River near Decatur, NE
2/22/12

And days later, on my long lonesome drive back to Colorado, when nothing at all seemed to matter any more, and I wondered how I could ever live out the remaining days of my life without either The Doctor or my mom as part of it any longer, still, something caught my eye, and I pulled off I-80 and watched in wonder as thousands of Snow Geese flocked on steaming ponds and fallow fields along the roadside.

Snow Geese, Nebraska
2/29/12

No, I didn't tell them all that.  How could I, even if it's the real how and why for me?  Are the stories we tell always some watered-down version of the truth;  the version that our hearts are willing to own in the light of day?

After the interview, I went out and watched some Bullock's Orioles noisily make their way through a tree just outside the offices.   Some Black-capped Chickadees were moving through the same trees, and one - to my delight - came to pose for photos. 

Black-capped Chickadee, Chatfield State Park, CO
7/10/13

Then I drove over to the Kingfisher Bridge, and caught an American Goldfinch flitting through the trees overhanging the river.  Goldfinches were one of my mom's favorites;  one that she watched for on the feeders she kept outside her kitchen window.  I watched the sun set in the west, amid clouds that never threatened rain.  The craziness and rush of getting to the interview were forgotten;  the birds were showing me how to slow down and live, as they do whenever I give them a chance.